


spiral of ants

by ilaeth



Series: evenings with you [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji's Birthday, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Gentleness, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26569975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilaeth/pseuds/ilaeth
Summary: "Love is a strong word Akaashi still treads lightly around. He’d seen it described alongside hugs and warmth and happiness in novels and English poetry but was so personally unfamiliar with the feeling he’d often wondered whether or not he could feel it at all until he met Bokuto. "Akaashi spends his birthday with the people he loves most.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Bokuto Koutarou & Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou, Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Series: evenings with you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908922
Comments: 8
Kudos: 114





	spiral of ants

**Author's Note:**

> *posts on bokuto's birthday* soulmates time  
> title taken from spiral of ants by lemon demon!

“I’m home,” Akaashi calls. His collar is damp from the drizzling rain outside and the tips of his hair stick to his forehead. Every time he shifts he can feel the rainwater that’s managed to make its way into the soles of his shoes between his toes, and all appetite he had before the weather took a turn suddenly disappears. With the toe of his foot he pushes off his shoes and tucks them in the genkan’s rack, coat following behind, as does his satchel. From the hallway his mother, dressed for the office despite her day off, stares with a heavy brow.

She’s always looked the same to him even at a young age. Akaashi thinks of Komi’s mother and Bokuto’s grandmother he sees in the bleachers and how they’ve aged in subtle ways over the past few years; then his mother, an unmoving rock, face settled into a constant pinch. The branches of wrinkles at the corners of her lips hardly shift. He wonders if the reason behind her excellent complexion is that she never changes her expression. 

As she watches Akaashi step up and out of the genkan she extends an arm with a cluster of thin letters held between her fingers. Her wrists are bony and a single chain watch hangs from her outstretched arm. Her wedding band slips down to the knuckle with the tilt of her hand.

Akaashi wets his lips nervously. The seam of the letters haven’t been opened like they usually have when he has mail. 

“Happy birthday, Keiji.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. She shifts her arm out until it’s straightened at the elbow, letters pinched between her fingers like a cigarette. He takes them and looks down to the front, flicking through the addresses. “My card is at the bottom. Father won’t be home until late, so it’ll just be you and I for dinner tonight.”

 _Tonight,_ he thinks. _I haven’t told her about tonight._

Akaashi gives a mute nod, flipping through the cards until he finds his mother’s. She’s written a simple _Keiji._ across the front in that immaculate lawyer-like handwriting of hers, punctuation and all. She’s sealed it with wax and there’s a faint smell of paraffin to the card. He glances up through his lashes and bobs his head towards the stairs where he meets her hard, unblinking eyes. The high rise of her polar-neck makes her look even more severe than usual. Akaashi has retained most of his mother’s good looks; the dark hair and pale skin, but her eyes aren’t like his, and when she smiles, there is no dimple. She reminds him entirely of his grandfather, who would chastise her at family dinners for speaking too much even when she’d say little to nothing. “Thank you. I’ll go and get dressed, and then I’ll be down to help you.”

“No need tonight. You go upstairs and relax for the evening.” She waves him off, stiff in her actions. Silence hangs between them before she turns on her heel to enter further into the house. 

The moment of brief sincerity shatters. “I’ll call you down when dinner’s ready. I’m expecting to see those test results you got back today.”

“Thank you,” he repeats, tepid, before shuffling to the stairway. 

Akaashi has lived in multiple houses since childhood. He can count six off the top of his head, but all seem interchangeable despite being separate buildings and he puts it down to the interior design. Every house has been polished, crisp white, and minimalistic in the sense that it feels like a house than it does a hospital room. Photos are sparse and framed in dark wood. What side-tables there are hold square reading lamps and landline phones. At the landing of the first floor Akaashi comes face-to-face with the only splash of colour on the walls: a photo of himself at a junior recital where he won Best Violinist. His cheeks are red, ruddy with pride, and as Akaashi stares back into the eyes of his thirteen-year-old self he wonders if the feeling of pride came from his own relief of being awarded over his talent or his relief at finally succeeding to his mother and father’s demands.

There’s also a single photo of his parents’ wedding. Neither smile in it.

The only room inside the house he doesn’t feel suffocated in is his bedroom. The sheets on his bed are a pale green and what furniture he has is mismatched by choice. Behind him, Akaashi nudges the door shut and finally allows himself to breathe. Only when the pressure eases over his chest does he move to sit on the mattress, thoroughly exhausted after a week at school and having to talk to his mother.

Love is a strong word Akaashi still treads lightly around. He’d seen it described alongside hugs and warmth and happiness in novels and English poetry but was so personally unfamiliar with the feeling he’d often wondered whether or not he could feel it at all. Until Fukurodani, Akaashi had not experienced real friendship. He had been convinced of a heart murmur on Christmas when Bokuto had presented him with a poorly knitted scarf and had nearly passed out in his grandmother’s kitchen when all the blood he had rushed to his ears and cheeks.

Akaashi shrugs off his blazer before reaching for the first envelope and opening it. It’s a birthday card from his grandparents on his mother’s side; a terribly old-fashioned card for an eighteen-year-old boy that’s been written with a fountain pen. It smells like mothballs and polish. There’s a smudge where the ink hasn’t quite dried on the _Yours truly,_ which he thumbs over. It’s put to the side in favour of the other’s, which he opens with care. Gifts and letters from schoolmates are all tucked safely in his satchel. He knows if his mother finds them she won’t let him live down his decision to join the volleyball team for the umpteenth time.

One of the last from the pile, however, has his heart stopping in his throat. It’s written with a poorly-spelt address line and a _Vabo-chan_ stamp. The corner of his mouth quirks into a smile and a fondness so strong it’s painful washes over him. With a little more care than the others Akaashi opens the letter and tugs the card from the envelope. 

It’s a folded piece of card with a cut-out printed photo of an owl meme that reads, in bold Impact font: _YOU MEAN THE OWL WORLD TO ME!_ It doesn’t even make sense. Akaashi thinks he could cry. 

He flips it open and reads the chicken-scrawl of Bokuto’s handwriting thirty times over before he peels away from the card. He finds his vision has blurred at the corners, and with his free hand he wipes his eyes before re-reading it again. 

Fukurodani isn’t the same without Bokuto. The first years have brought some light into the club from Bokuto’s absence, and Akaashi _does_ take pride in treating his new kouhais to ice-cream after practice, but it isn’t the same as treating his upperclassman to one. His bag weighs one bento box lighter every morning on the walk to school because he’s only packing for himself these days. The club-room smells cleaner and looks tidier, devoid of gossip magazines and forgotten pots of hair gel, and as much as Akaashi would mutter under his breath as he used to clean up behind their captain he can’t deny that the room feels too big without him. 

He thinks back to his first month as a third year and the heavy weight of Onaga’s hand on his shoulder as they were getting changed out of their clothes after the first practice back of the month. He had asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I seem to have packed another pair of knee-pads,” Akaashi said, stiff and monotone. He had looked down at the pair of knee-pads in his gym bag and frowned because Akaashi didn’t wear ones that came up past his thighs so he didn’t know why he had packed them. He blamed it on muscle memory; the automatic response to include thigh-high knee pads, candies, and a book to read to Bokuto with each away trip the club went to. “I don’t need them. Do you think anyone would wear thigh-high ones?”

“I’ve never seen anyone wear them except Bokuto.” A pinched smile. “Cheer up, Captain,” he’d said. “You’ve got a team to lead.”

“Yes.” Akaashi gave a small nod. He’d stood in the clubroom until the automatic lights turned off and the sky went dark. 

With a touch so soft it barely brushes the paper he thumbs over the writing. The swell of fondness behind his ribs turns to a crippling ache. 

Akaashi rises before he can get caught by his mother or father; he knows he wouldn’t hear the end of it if they found out he was still in contact with Bokuto. The only game she’d ever come to watch was one where Bokuto hadn’t had a good day, and for the entire trip home she’d picked and picked and picked about how she never knew Akaashi had to put up with someone ‘like that’. 

She’d watched him in the reflection of the rear-view mirror to the point where the car would swerve in and out of the lane. Akaashi had wondered why she’d looked so disappointed considering they’d won the game that evening. “You’re my son, Keiji. I can’t have people at work talk about me like that.”

His parents have always been critical of who he befriended and sat with during class. Akaashi had only attended private schools until Fukurodani; a one-off due to their work that was only meant to last until he finished middle school but ended up being a four year affair. It was the only place where they didn’t have full reign over his life, where the school wasn’t bowing at their will after donations. They didn’t know each and every parent of the kids he would hang around. It was to his utmost surprise that after an icy introduction to the volleyball team he was still invited to have lunch with the other first years instead of being ignored for his attitude. Akaashi would pinpoint that as his first time making friends with people his parents didn’t approve of.

He tucks it under the cushion of his desk chair and begins undressing for the evening. The water in his hair has begun to dry but it leaves him feeling sticky so he showers, shaves, and applies spots of cologne to his neck. 

The person who stares back at Akaashi in the mirror is an older version of that eager, starry-eyed teen who had joined Fukurodani in the hopeful footsteps of Bokuto. His hair has grown a little longer so it brushes the base of his neck when it’s wet, and he has to tuck it behind his ears when he’s leaning over a desk to write or read. He’s always liked that feminine softness that comes with longer hair and wonders how long he can go without being pestered to get it cut. Akaashi curls a ringlet behind his ear and catches himself flushing at his reflection.

By the time he walks downstairs his father is home. There’s a wet umbrella in the genkan and stiff leather shoes next to it. With his English mock exam folded between his fingers he steps into the kitchen and sets out the cutlery and plates for their evening meal. The paper is silently placed on the table where his father, still dressed from a day at the office, picks it up and reads it. What wrinkles he has deepens as he reads. “Well done,” he says. There is no ‘Happy Birthday’.

“Thank you.”

“What did you get?” his mother asks as she ladles broth into a bowl.

“Fifty-nine out of sixty.”

The bowl is set on the table. Akaashi’s fingers knit around one another as he watches his mother’s expression while she reads over his results. Her nail, filed and manicured, follows the words she reads on the paper until it stops. “You misspelled ‘conniving.” 

Akaashi realises that he’s tearing open a paper cut he’d gotten two weeks back with how much he’s tugging and pushing his skin around. It burns but he can’t find it in himself to stop. With unblinking eyes he keeps his gaze low on the surface of the table as the scab opens and the pink beneath his skin blossoms red. “Yes. Sorry.”

The paper is folded back into a half and set aside in the letter rack for later evaluation. He wonders if she’s being kind because it’s his birthday, or if it’s merely because she’s as tired and hungry as he is.

He seats himself last out of the three of them. Idly nudging a slice of carrot around the broth, Akaashi keeps his eyes trained on the bowl, despite knowing just how much his father hates that. It’s just that Akaashi doesn’t think he can stomach witnessing their expressions when he questions: “May I go to a party?”

The clink of chopsticks draws to a halt. He wets his lips but otherwise stays silent. Across the table the kitchen’s clock ticks. Outside the rain hits the foyer’s glass panels and the sound carries through the open doorway. A car passing by barps its horn. Akaashi can feel every single hair follicle on his arms stand on edge as he waits for something to break the deafening white noise. Finally, from the corner of his eye, he watches his mother lay her chopsticks down on her bowl and pleat her fingers at the edge of the tablecloth. He still can’t look up, even if his father’s gaze is boring into his hairline so intense he can feel it.

“A party?” she echoes, carefully neutral.

“Yes,” Akaashi keeps his hands in his lap. Hidden from sight his fingers twist around one another with enough force to give himself friction burn. “Please. If I may.”

“Is it on a school night?”

“It’s on a Friday,” Akaashi replies, which is neither a truth nor a lie. It’s tonight, but he doesn’t think he should specify that. He just wants to gauge their reactions even if he knows what his own decision is.

“You have piano on Saturday, and you’re meant to be studying.” He can hear the frown in his mother’s voice. Still, his father is silent, save for the heavy breaths escaping his nose.

“I would be back Friday evening,” he says, finally looking up to meet their gazes. His father’s expression is indecipherable. His mother looks confused. “Only for the evening. I’d be home for piano with Ms. Ito and I’ll study during dinner at school. I promise.”

“Your father and I will need to talk about this.”

He swallows around the lump in his throat. “It would just be a few hours at most. Just to see some friends outside of practice.”

“You know entrance exams are coming up soon. Your father and I were doing twice as much work as you are now just to get into Chiba, and even then we weren’t in the top ten.”

“But I’ve been working at home and during lunch-breaks.”

His father says: “Not very well, considering those test scores.”

“We will have to speak about it,” his mother repeats, a worry in her brow. “We can’t have you failing your entrance exam, Keiji. You know that.”

“Why?” He can’t catch himself before he talks back. The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. _I shouldn’t have said that_ , he thinks, suddenly terrified, _I’ve never back chatted before._

“Don’t you speak to your mother like that,” his father says, chopsticks hitting the table with a clack. “How dare you.”

Spurred on by sudden embarrassment, he retaliates: “I’m eighteen. I shouldn’t need permission.”

“You’re still living beneath our roof, and until you learn some manners you won’t speak back to your parents like that. Are we clear?”

The table falls into silence. Akaashi watches as a bead of blood begins to slip between the ridges in his skin and gathers in the valleys of his palm. He flexes and flexes his fingers and watches the bead press, burst, and stamp on the calluses of his palm. He twists his fingers until the cut has split open to the size of a rice grain and follows the path another drop of blood leaves as it trickles down to his wrist. 

They finish dinner in silence. Akaashi cleans up the pan while his mother wipes the table and his father sits in the living room to read through his notes for a case he has to judge in the upcoming days. He’s rolled his sweater up to his elbows and realises he’s just about scrubbed off the non-stick coating on the pan when he smells the iron-wool. Akaashi shoots a quick look to see if his mother’s noticed before placing it on the drying rack and stepping away from the sink. “Am I alright to retire for the night?”

She looks up from where she’s nudging the salt cellars together and Akaashi notices just how tired she looks. Her hair is greying at the temples and there’s weight beneath her eyes that speaks of the nights she spends away at her office, sometimes staying there for days so Akaashi ends up having the house to himself save for the nights when his father comes home. She looks motherly for once, but it’s less to do with the softness in her eyes than it is the way she tidies the table. She has never been soft. Akaashi doesn’t think he’s ever seen her break a smile save for a camera and when she’s had a glass of wine. She maintains eye-contact with him and looks like she wants to say something but stops herself at the last moment. Her posture straightens, and Akaashi is back with the stony-faced lawyer who bought him textbooks for his eighth birthday instead of a games console like all the other boys in his class had. “Sure. I’ll be up in a moment to give you your gifts.”

“Thank you.” He bows, then leaves the room to scurry up to the sanctuary of upstairs. A weight that’s been sitting at the base of his ribs eases and Akaashi feels himself grow light-headed with the blood-rush to his head. He slumps down at his desk and stares at the Vabo-chan stamp with a smudge of what could only be sauce on the corner and wills himself not to cry. 

She comes up ten or so minutes later with a few slim boxes in her hands. His father is behind her, looking older than he is, expressionless save for the tiredness in his gait. Akaashi sits on his bed and takes each parcel with care. The first is a new bow for his violin, expensive and thoughtful, and he finds himself unable to speak for a moment. It’s possibly the most heartfelt gift he’s had off of them for his birthdays so far. He’d picked up the violin of his own volition, and while they’d both been piano players, they’d encouraged him after warming up to his playing. “Thank you,” he says, thumbing over the Penzel engraving on the frog of the bow. 

The second is a new pair of glasses, which are just a touch stronger than his other prescription but at least let him see what words are on paper other than blurry letters. He slips them on his nose and watches the sight of the wrinkles on his mother’s face sharpen and come into better focus. He quickly looks away and back down to the final present. It’s a weighted box and relatively deep. He gives it a little shake before unfolding the wrapping and allowing his eyes to widen at the sight of a new mobile phone.

“Thank you,” he repeats, breathless. They didn't let him have a phone all through highschool. The one he’d bought for himself in his second year had been confiscated and never returned. He reminds himself not to mention the one he has tucked beneath his mattress, bought out of pocket money scraped together, and hidden from his parent’s prying eyes. 

“We reckoned since you were an adult now that you deserved one,” his father says. His voice is a deep rumble, crackling at the edges. His mother’s is sharp and enunciated. He wonders where his own stuttering and softness comes from. “Especially during university.”

He thumbs over the box and flushes at the ears. He’s grateful, he thinks, even if the gesture is dulled by the fact that he knows he should’ve been allowed to have access to a mobile phone the same time all his classmates did. “I appreciate it,” Akaashi says, neither here nor there, and sets the gifts aside. They both linger in the doorway before offering pinched smiles and leaving.

As soon as the sound of the boiler shuts off and the TV from downstairs replaces it Akaashi rushes to get his phone. It’s already eight and he’d meant to confirm tonight by seven. He taps out a quick reply before stuffing his phone inside his pillow case and quickly getting any homework done.

Akaashi sits on his windowsill for a full forty-five minutes before his phone lights up. He flips it open before the tone has even finished and scans the quick text-talk of _@ the park. c u in 5_

He exhales. Up above the clock reads ten-fifteen. 

With as little weight in his heels as possible Akaashi eases around the room to scoop up his coat and tug it over his shoulders. The rain has stopped now but the cold has only worsened. Hung over his chair is the threadbare, blue and green scarf Bokuto’s grandmother had knitted for him for his birthday last year. He wraps it around his neck and breathes in the smell of the wool and finds his heart-rate drop, muscles giving in on themselves as they relax. Akaashi waits for the buzzing in his head to stop before he moves again, triple-checking his pockets for his phone and wallet and opening his bedroom door. 

The landing is silent save for the tick of the grandfather clock. He eases his way down the aisle until he reaches the stairs, and there, with utmost care, he tiptoes down the one by one. At the third step from the bottom a door from upstairs opens. He weighs up the consequences of getting caught mid-escape against getting caught once he comes back. The rush of adrenaline nearly buckles his knees when he runs, stumbling only once before pegging it to the back door and locking it behind him.

He gives himself one, whole minute to catch his breath. Akaashi finds himself backing up against the wall to brace his weight, exhales coming out white in the night’s chill. The air has cooled only by a degree or two from earlier and the streets are damp from rainwater, leaving the garden smelling of petrichor. As he shuts the latch of his back-garden’s gate the thrill of the evening hits him. Akaashi looks down to his hands trembling. He turns them over to watch his palms catch the light above from the porch’s lamp and exhales an excited little breath before he takes off to cross the road and speed-walk in a way that can’t help but look suspicious. 

At the edge of the park a block from his house he spots the lights of a beaten-up old Jeep. His pace quickens until Akaashi finds himself sprinting towards the sight. He taps on the driver’s side’s window with his knuckle, heaving white condensation onto the glass, and scares Kuroo enough to have him jump-start the car. 

“Jesus Christ!” he curses, his head snapping around to see what the source of the sound was before winding down the window. Akaashi clutches his palms to stop them trembling, seeking reassurance, standing still for just a second before he’s beckoned over. “Get in, birthday boy.”

Warmth floods through his system in a cascade of relief and fondness. Akaashi stumbles off the pavement’s lip to the passenger’s side. He buckles up and looks up to Kuroo with sparkling eyes, who merely widens his grin. “You look excited.”

“I am,” Akaashi replies, practically quivering in his seat. He leans back into the worn polyester and wills himself to bite back the tears he can already feel in his eyes. It’s such a change of atmosphere; away from the overbearing eyes of his parents, their disappointed stares when he tells them eventually he’s planning to go into journalism instead of law, and the fear in their eyes when they see him stray away from the future they’ve written out for him since his first birthday. “How are you, Kuroo-san?”

“How am I? How are _you?”_ Kuroo looks over his shoulder for any cars behind before pulling out from the curb and taking off down the street. The houses that line his road are grand, with lawns and ornate hedges and double-doored gates. Akaashi watches the sight of his own house pass them by, dark save for the light on the back porch, indistinguishable from the neighbors save the extra car in their driveway. “I haven’t seen you since Bokuto’s birthday.”

“I am well,” Akaashi replies, fingers twisting over one another in his lap. Kuroo doesn’t seem to notice, so he takes it as a sign to continue. “University applications are to be in very soon and I’m still undecided on my first and second choice.”

“God, tell me about it. It’s why I took a year out. They put so much pressure on students to just _know_ what they’re going to do in the future if it doesn’t have anything to do with STEM subjects and teaching.” Akaashi gives a little nod and watches Kuroo’s expression twist as he speaks. He’s always looked up to him in a way that’s far from an underclassmen to an upperclassmen because Kuroo lacks general common sense and that’s generally something _not_ to admire, but there’s always been a quiet fondness for Kuroo in the back of Akaashi’s mind. He’d met him just shy of his first month at Fukurodani during a practice match where Kuroo had told off a third-year for making fun of Bokuto. He had decided at that moment that he respected him more than any of Fukurodani’s upperclassmen.

Sometime during his first year Akaashi had found out Kuroo was tutoring Bokuto, which had surprised him because at face-value he had always tried to present himself in a way that made him look average. Kuroo never flaunted his test scores or University offers like the other kids in his class. They aren’t the closest friends; Akaashi doubts they would have made acquaintances had it not been for Bokuto in the first place, but he likes Kuroo. They aren’t close enough for intimate conversation but with the way he speaks Akaashi wonders if they’re in similar predicaments: stifled by the expectations of their parents who’ve already decided a life for them both before they have the chance to. “I mean, who wants to be a doctor when most diagnoses are on Google anyway?”

 _Definitely lacks common sense,_ Akaashi reminds himself.

“And anyway, it’s such a pressure to pass all these exams just for an entry-way into a profession that doesn’t always care about how much _you_ care about patients. My sister always wanted to be a pediatrician and would’ve been the best goddamn one in Japan, but they rejected her ‘cause she never got the best test results. Stupid, right?”

“Quite so,” Akaashi agrees. “I’ve never been unfortunate enough to end up in hospital for the long term but I would rather a kind-hearted doctor than one that would simply tell me the diagnoses, then leave.”

“Right? And I bet most people would prefer that.” Kuroo swings them around a bend and takes the first exit off a roundabout. “Corrupt system, I tell you, Akaashi-kun. Most of the shit you learn in school they don’t even cover in university-level medicine. I took a course once, y’knowㅡone of those taster thingy-majigs for university, and they _prefaced_ by saying they’re going to start a fresh slate as soon as the year starts. What’s the point in _doing_ high-school if that’s the case?”

“Did you want to practice medicine, Kuroo-san?”

“What? No way. I kind of went just to put a middle-finger up to the professor that rejected my sister. Let’s just say I won’t be accepted into Kyoto University any time soon.”

Kuroo rolls down the window to the bitter evening air as they draw up to the bus stop. It’s a small, stout building that’s well-lit and roofed but with only three walls. Akaashi raises up on his thighs to look out the window and desperately wishes he brought his glasses because he can’t make out the face of the figure leant against the back wall of the station. There’s a back-pack on their shoulders and a thick, heavy coat. Akaashi squints to just about make the smile on his face out before the figure is bounding across the empty car-park and open road towards them.

“Look both ways before running, you idiot!” Kuroo scalds. Bokuto speeds past him to the passenger’s side, tugs open the door, and lifts Akaashi out into a hug so tight it nearly crushes his ribs.

He couldn’t breathe beforehand from the nervous ball of energy in the pit of his stomach. Akaashi can’t even feel his limbs. He doesn’t register anything past the excited squeal in his ear and the smell of Bokuto’s fabric softener from his scarf. When the blood returns to his arms he realises they’re hugged tight around Bokuto’s midriff and holding him with enough force to crush a walnut. 

“Akaashi!” Bokuto cries, swinging him around like an excited child. He finally puts him down and holds Akaashi by the cheeks, his palms warm and callous-rough against the soft flesh of his skin. Bokuto’s eyes sparkle with elation. “Akaashi, happy birthday! Happy birthday, Akaashi!”

“Thank you, Bokuto-san.” Akaashi’s voice is level despite the size of his heart growing three-fold in the space beneath his ribs. His own fingers cling to the tassels of his scarf. “It’s good to see you.”

Bokuto tugs him in for another hug, another happy noise leaving his mouth, before he puts distance between them. “You’ve grown, I think! Someone’s been eating their milk and yoghurt for good, healthy bones!”

“It’s what a captain must do.” Bokuto grins at that. He ruffles Akaashi’s hair, which has grown to brush the nape of his neck, and waves to Kuroo over his shoulder. Kuroo gives him an encouraging thumbs up. 

“Well, let’s go!”

The back of Kuroo’s pick-up truck smells like dry grass and Deep Heat. Akaashi keeps his knees squeezed together, fingers hooked around one another, as Bokuto hangs forward over his seatbelt. He watches Akaashi with eyes that sparkle, and Akaashi suddenly feels less like a wallflower and more like a shooting star with how he’s being looked at. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No!” Boktuo waves his hands in admonition. “Sorry, was I staring?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry! Just...still not used to not seein’ you every day, Akaashi, y’know? And your hair looks nice like that. I like how it does,” Bokuto reaches up to the tips of his own hair and twists them so they’re curled like a hook, “that.”

“Thank you. I’ve been using a new shampoo lately.”

“Thought so. It smells really nice!”

Akaashi is suddenly very glad for the lack of street-lights in this area of town. His face is hot enough to fry an egg. From across the back seats Bokuto reaches out to unwind his fingers from one another and instead takes his hand between his own. They’re so warm they burn his own but they’re perfect, and in return Akaashi offers him his other hand so they’re sat knee-to-knee and connected by their fingers.

The rest of the ride is spent in relative silence. The radio crackles every now and again and Bokuto occasionally pipes up about the cafeteria food at his university but other than that the three of them remain quiet. Akaashi finds himself swiping his thumbs in a wind-screen-wiper motion across the backs of Bokuto’s knuckles and in return braces the weight that leans heavier and heavier into him. He hadn’t seen Bokuto in three months save the one Skype call they attempted before Akaashi had to leave for dinner and explain to his parents who he was speaking to in his room. Having him here in person, however, makes up for the time spent apart at lonely dinner tables and weekends without having extra practice to look forward to. “Hey, Akaashi, are the first years behaving themselves?”

“Define ‘behaving’,” Akaashi replies. 

Bokuto’s face twists as he thinks. “Being goodrㅡhey, do you make them clean up the gym afterwards? ‘Cause you know they’re meant to! You can’t be too soft on them or they’ll push you around and give you cheek. See, remember those first years when they first saw me? I swear some of them thought I was a fourth-year, or _fifth-year,_ ‘cause I was so good and tall.”

“Yes,” Akaashi lies, “they must’ve.”

“They probably thought you came to the wrong club, with how your hair looked back then.”

“At least I don’t _lie_ about my own hair!”

“It isn’t a lie! This is _au-naturale._ You’re all too jealous to just admit superior genes exist.”

“Your hair _does_ often smell quite heavily of gel, Kuroo-san…”

“Ha-ha!”

“Quit being rude,” Kuroo hisses, lacking all bite, “I’m trying to park.”

All three of them step into air that smells like grease and salt. Akaashi squints against the bright lights of the McDonald’s building and follows behind Kuroo who approaches the counter with his hands stuffed in his pockets. His cheeks are ruddy from the cold and the fine hairs at the back of his neck are standing on edge and Akaashi can just about make out a smirk on his face.

“Aw, don’t look at me like that.” Kuroo’s face pulls into a frown as Kenma catches sight of him from behind the counter. His hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, brown roots grown well past his ears peeking out from beneath the cap. He keeps up a scowl until he catches sight of Akaashi and the expression softens. 

“Isn’t he the cutest?” Kuroo jabs his thumb at Kenma. Bokuto, to their left, stands nose-to-glass with the stand containing the HappyMeal toys. “Just the cutest. Hey, could we get a discount?”

“I’m not serving you.” Kenma turns away from Kuroo and blanks him as if there’s a brick wall between them. He greets Akaashi from behind the counter, midway to putting a cap on a large soda. “Happy Birthday, Keiji.”

“Thank you, Kenma-san,” Akaashi replies, dipping into a short bow. A strand of brassy hair has fallen from his hair-net and hangs limply in Kenma’s gaze. He makes no move to tuck it back underneath the hem. “I appreciated the gift card you sent me.”

“I thought you would.” A smile twitches at the side of Kenma’s mouth but is gone as quick as it came. He nudges the cup down the trolley as another employee picks it up. “Spend it wisely now you’re legal.”

“No promises.” A smirk twitches on the corner of Akaashi’s mouth, as does Kenma’s, a silent joke passing between them. 

“Wild talk for someone who got gifted a _Waterstones_ gift-card. Do they sell porn there?”

“Don’t be vulgar, Kuro.”

“Just _curious._ ”

“Kenma!” Bokuto calls. A couple with their children on a nearby table look over at the sound and Akaashi tries his best to ignore the attention they’re attracting by standing in the middle of a near-empty McDonalds still dressed in their hats and scarves. “If you pack my meal, can you slip in the beagle dog toy for me?”

“Only if you buy a Happy Meal.”

“ _Please._ Please, Kenma! It’s for my lil’ bro!”

“You don’t have a brother.”

“It’s fine,” Akaashi holds up the palms of his hands as a mitigator. “I’ll buy it for him.”

“You really gonna make Akaashi buy a toy for Bokuto’s brother on _his_ birthday?” Kuroo shakes his head like a disappointed teacher. “Wow.”

“It _is_ pretty mean, Kenma. It’s just a toy.”

“I will get _fired_.”

Bokuto snivells.

Akaashi watches the muscle beneath Kenma’s brow twitch. He draws in a breath through his nose before exhaling it. “Fine. _Fine._ What would you like to order?”

“Do we get a discount?” 

“Stop being cheap.”

“Well, it’s Akaashi’s birthday,” Bokuto points out. All three of them, plus the eavesdropping couple in the booth, look to Akaashi, who flushes under the attention. “He should be the one to choose.”

“I’m not sure.” He peers up at the menu of _Mc_ ’s and frowns. “Erm. I’ll...uh, what’s nice?”

“It’s his first time here,” Bokuto points out helpfully, offering a grin to Kenma behind the counter.

“Yourㅡyour _what?_ Your first time at McDonalds?” Kuroo shuffles closer on the wet floor. He lays a wide palm on Akaashi’s shoulder and frowns. “Akaashi, that’s actually quite sad. Are your parents health-fanatics?”

“Don’t be rude, Kuroo!”

“You ren’t too far from it, actually.” Akaashi looks up to the overhead monitor and watches a few teens come in through the doors. He sidesteps the queue alongside Bokuto and Kuroo as Kenma moves back to the till to deal with the customers. “My father’s very strict on diet and insists on home-made meals.”

“Is he good?”

“Yes, I suppose.” A pause. “But I’ve never had much to compare it to, save the odd restaurant visit.”

A second hand joins his shoulder. Bokuto, warm-bodied and encouraging, grins down at him. “You’re an adult now, Akaashi. You can eat all the crap in the world and don’t have to get told off for it.”

He hadn’t thought of it like that. Akaashi processes it like an overheated computer and merely gives a nod instead. “I can, can’t I?”

“Sure can. Come on, let’s fatten you up!”

He feels a weight against his hand as Bokuto, eager and reassuring, tugs him towards the queue. The girls are bickering between choosing lemonade or orangeade and Kenma looks like he’s disassociating so Akaashi figures he has enough time to decide. Beside him, Bokuto slips his fingers between the gaps in Akaashi’s fingers and swings their hands in an uneven rhythm.

He feels two years younger, strolling the track of the athletic field hand-in-hand because Bokuto had had a bad day and Akaashi had to try and lure him out of the store-room after practice. He’d found him cowering behind the crash mats, tugging clumps out of his hair, stuck somewhere between his own thoughts and the white noise of the girls’ running team doing laps outside. Akaashi had sat with him and talked with him for what could have been an hour before they both returned to the gym, long abandoned, and Bokuto had excitedly decided to try a jump floater. He had red-rimmed eyes but his smile was so bright Akaashi was reminded of just why he chose to go to Fukurodani in the first place.

At eighteen Bokuto’s hands are bigger and too sweaty and callused and when he squeezes he squeezes a little too tight but it’s perfect, and it grounds Akaashi enough for him to forget about the meal he had earlier with his parents. He returns the squeeze and catches sight of the flush at the top of his ears.

“Nuggies! Get the nuggies, Akaashi.”

“I’ll have the nuggies,” Akaashi repeats once they’re in the queue. Kenma nods and poorly conceales a smile beneath his collar.

The outside air is bitter when they step through the sliding doors. Akaashi exhales white into the overhead lamp’s trajectory and follows Kuroo as he walks around the front of the McDonald’s and past the drive-through. To his left Bokuto stares up at the stars, distracted, kept in a straight line only by the guidance of their clasped hands. Akaashi guides him down the steps so he doesn’t fall until they reach the loading bay where a few cardboard boxes wilt in the evening’s damp air and a caged fly killer hangs overhead.

Kuroo sits on the steps leading to the back door, lanky legs bent at the knees and held to his chest. Akaashi follows suit as Bokuto stands, entranced by the blue LED of the fly killer. 

“How does it feel being an adult, Akaashi?” Kuroo asks. His arms stretch over his knees, lean and long, fingers dangling from the wide splay of his hands. He watches Akaashi with eyes that remind him of Kenma’s: searching, always looking to read in between the lines for things words won’t explain. He’s always been slightly intimidated by Kuroo, not only because of his height but his intelligence. He’s always downplayed it, Akaashi thinks, be it either to fit in with other people or to just throw off his opponents but Akaashi knows that behind his lazy smirks and protests of _who, me?_ he’s just as perceptive as Kenma. He asks questions to hide the fact he already knows the answer.

“Normal. Indifferent.” Akaashi adjusts the scarf covering his neck and collarbones. “I suppose I don’t feel any different to when I was seventeen, as underwhelming of an answer that is.”

Kuroo shrugs. “Not really. I don’t think you feel the joys of being an adult until you finally get to go to bars and work.”

“Exciting.”

“Work is boring. Who even looks forward to that?” Bokuto sits himself on the step next to Akaashi and cocks his head. He looks owlish, Akaashi thinks, peering at them both beneath the moonlight. “The only thing I’m looking forward to is finally being able to drive.”

“You’re nineteen.”

“Still!”

The concrete beneath their thighs is cold enough to freeze water so Bokuto slips off his parka jacket to lay flat for them to both sit on. They bump knees and watch stars slip in and out of the clouds.

There’s a sound of metal squealing, a low thud, and the back fire door opens. Kenma steps out in an old denim jacket, hair pulled low in a ponytail, and heads towards them. With one hand he holds drinks and the other he has a few bags.

“Happy Birthday,” Kenma murmurs as he hands Akaashi a brown paper bag with grease stains on the outside.

“What is it?”

“Look inside.”

He unfurls the paper and peeks into the bag. “It’s a muffin.”

“A _birthday_ muffin.” Bokuto amends.

A pause. “Thank you,” Akaashi says, drawing his bottom lip between his teeth. “This is the best birthday cake I’ve ever had.”

Kuroo opens his mouth to comment but Kenma presses weight into the toe of his shoe and shuts him up. Bokuto, on the other hand, leans his head on Akaashi’s shoulder as he peers into the bag. He smells like fabric softener and clean deodorant and reminds Akaashi of the moments they used to share when they’d fall asleep against one another on the way home from camps and matches. His eyes flicker to the sight of Bokuto, who meets his gaze, and smiles. “You like chocolate chips, right?”

“It’s my favourite.”

“I knew it!” Bokuto leans up briefly to address Kenma. “I told you.”

“Thank you.” Akaashi repeats, rolling the paper down on the bag to set it aside for later. Kenma hands him the cardboard cup of his drink as well as a box that’s warm to the touch and takes a seat opposite the three, legs crossed on the floor. He gently lifts the lid of the box and peers inside with wonder. Beside him, Kenma hands him a bag with a few sauces and some salt, but Akaashi hardly notices. He picks up one of the nuggets and, under three pairs of watchful eyes, takes a small bite. “Wow,” he says, quiet, before chewing and swallowing. “It’s a bit like tempura, isn’t it?”

“A little,” Kenma agrees. He uncaps a pot of sauce and nudges it towards Akaashi. It’s browny-yellow and smells sweet. “Try dipping it in that.”

Akaashi takes the half-eaten nugget and dips it in the sauce packet. It clings to the outside and the flesh of the chicken and smells quite sweet. He puts the rest in his mouth and widens his eyes a fraction. Akaashi chews, swallows, and repeats: “Wow.” He’s never eaten any kind of comfort food save the odd times his mother bakes but he understands wholly now the craze behind fast food. It isn’t extraordinary nor anywhere near healthy but it’s fulfilling in a way that comes more from the fact that it’s not _meant_ to be healthy and still enjoyable. He finishes the box within a minute and tears through another two sauce packets, one red and the other brown, before being offered some of Kuroo’s and eating that after a muffled _thank you_.

They pull up to a place that sells ice-cream and eat it along a pierside in Matsushima, bare-footed with the tide around their ankles. The water is bitter and the ice-cream gives him brain-freeze but Akaashi feels warm enough to melt away whatever chill he has and ends up insisting they stay just a little longer. The other three make no room to protest. 

It’s beyond two when Kenma and Kuroo bid their farewells. Kuroo gives Akaashi a little box with a 10x10 Rubik’s Cube inside as well as a set of three hand-painted bookmarks. Akaashi hugs him for the first time and waves them both goodbye as they pull out from the pier and drive back home. 

By the time Bokuto and Akaashi make it to the bus station the world around them has began to wake up. Lights in neighboring houses turn on and cars kickstart in garages with office workers who have yet to get their bearings. They stand shoulder to shoulder as the sun first begins to peak over the horizon and the evening’s chill settles in the grass as beads of perspiration. In this lighting Bokuto’s eyes look the most golden, Akaashi thinks; sparkling and warm as they track the speed of a motorbike buzzing past. He is the most beautiful person Akaashi has ever seen and he loves him so much it’s a physical ache. “If I won the lottery I think I’d buy a motorbike. Do you like them?”

“I think they’re rather terrifying,” Akaashi comments, breath stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat as he remembers this will be their last time together for a few weeks. Beside his palm Bokuto’s hand is warm. He gives it a little squeeze, and gets one back in return. “I’ve heard that you need to wear specific clothes to ride one.”

“Leather jackets!”

“Yes. And gloves, and a helmet.”

“Do you think you’d need to wear knee-pads?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Good thing we have them just in case. It would be safer if the drivers did. I think I’d like to learn to drive one just to look cool. I’d be able to turn up to your matches in all leather and cool aviators and all the first years wouldn’t dare mess you around then.”

“They’d think I’m part of the yakuza.”

“Oh, crap, didn’t think of that. It would be pretty awkward if the police showed up.”

Akaashi huffs a laugh under his breath. Bokuto tilts his head closer and grins boyishly. “Did you have a good day, Akaashi?”

“Honestly?” In front of them a milk van parks opposite the bus station and draws up outside a primary school. Akaashi watches a tired old man get out and huff hot air into his cupped palms to warm them. “I think this is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

“No way! Really?” 

“Really.”

They lapse into comfortable silence, watching the man gather crates of glass milk bottles to load onto a trolley. They clink and chime from across the road and knock together as he wheels the trolley over the gravel pathway. The air is crisp and smells like petrichor. He’s tired and languid, nearly fast asleep on his feet, and Akaashi wishes this moment would never end. “Let’s make next year even better,” Bokuto proposes. He doesn’t comment about the weight of Akaashi’s head on his shoulder; his own weight presses back against it. “We’ll get you a huge ice-cream cake.”

“I _am_ partial to ice-cream.”

“I’ll get my grandma to make one for you.”

“I rather liked that carrot cake she made when I visited yours’ not too long ago.”

“She spent all morning making it. She loves you, y’know. She loves you loads.”

Akaashi’s heart squeezes in his chest painfully. “I love her too.”

They linger in silence as the chill around the station begins to crispen and the wind from yesterday returns. Akaashi lifts his scarf a little higher up his nose and watches a streetlamp fizzle out to darkness. “Oh!” Bokuto pipes up, suddenly awake, before reaching around for his backpack. After a moment of rustling he tugs out a crumpled lump covered in wrapping paper and stickers. Akaashi takes it from him with sparkling eyes. “Happy Birthday.”

“Is it for me?” Akaashi asks dumbly.

Bokuto, kindly, doesn’t comment about it. “I made it myself.”

He tears open sheet by sheet until he pulls out a woolen sweater knitted with bright yellow and reds and greens. There’s an intricate plait running down the seam of the sleeves. The colours are horrific but Akaashi has never wanted to wear anything so dear in his life so he immediately slips it on and finds himself tearing up. There’s a little felt robin pin as well as a bag of peppermint sweets. “Thank you,” he says, voice cracking around the words. “I mean it, Bokuto-san. Thank you for this evening.”

“It’s okay.” He bends down a little to wipe the tears from Akaashi’s cheeks. “Woah, Akaashi’s crying. Is that good?”

“Yes,” he replies, “yes, it’s very good.”

“I’m really glad! I knew you liked those colours so I put ‘em all together. It fits you really nice, too.” 

“I don’t think I’ll ever wear another garment in my life.”

“Not even underwear?”

“Maybe that.”

As the sun rises to full-mast in the sky Bokuto misses both of his buses and Akaashi misses his piano lesson in favour of watching the clouds part and the snow on the pavement melt. They wait hand-in-hand as the rain clouds from yesterday drift further and further from the seaside, and share the warmth of the knit sweater between them even when it grows warm enough to let go. 

**Author's Note:**

> it is TEN MINUTES to tomorrow so i've posted this without properly beta-ing so i do apologise in advance if this comes across as dodgy in some places? i've had this in my drafts for months and never got around to finishing it so HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOKUTO!!! and happy early birthday to best boy akaashi <3 thank you for reading!


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